How McCabe feeds Trump’s narrative

It’s tempting to view President Trump’s many attacks on Andrew McCabe through the usual lens: He’s angry, and he’s lashing out. Rage tweets! and all that. But it’s at least worth entertaining the idea that he’s not sad to see McCabe making the rounds on his book tour.

I’m generally skeptical of the well-traveled idea that Trump is some social media maestro constantly and strategically distracting us from the stories he doesn’t like and directing us toward the ones he does. He is thin-skinned and likes attention, period. The practical effect of that is, he often does lash out, sometimes in ways that seem obviously counterproductive. Often, he draws more attention to a story that is bad for him.

McCabe, though, feeds Trump’s favorite narrative in key ways.

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McCabe is confirming that he, as acting FBI director, launched a counterintelligence investigation into Trump after James B. Comey’s firing. McCabe is also saying that the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment to try to remove Trump was somewhat seriously explored around the same time. (Lawyers were involved, noses were counted, Rod Rosenstein wasn’t joking, etc.)

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It’s difficult to find a better example in the public domain of something that plays into Trump’s narrative that the “deep state” is working against him behind the scenes and trying to take him down. McCabe is literally confirming, on the record, that such an effort existed, however preliminary it was and however warranted you might think it to be.

The 25th Amendment story was broken by the New York Times, using anonymous sources, and at the time, Trump critics assailed the paper for publishing it. They worried it would be used as a pretext to fire Rosenstein. But if Rosenstein can be accused of nefariously working to take down Trump, now multiple people in positions of authority at the FBI can be, too. Trump and his supporters have even taken to (wrongly) labeling this an attempted “coup.”

A vigorous debate has taken shape among some former law enforcement officials outside the case over whether F.B.I. investigators overreacted in opening the counterintelligence inquiry during a tumultuous period at the Justice Department. Other former officials noted that those critics were not privy to all of the evidence and argued that sitting on it would have been an abdication of duty.

Sure, Trump has to put up with McCabe suggesting he might be a Russian asset and passing along secondhand stories about Trump believing Vladimir Putin that North Korea isn’t a threat. That’s liable to get under Trump’s skin. But it’s also not all that shocking in the context of the last two years. Meanwhile, the ball has been moved forward on one of Trump’s favorite narratives, on two fronts.

Having watched many of McCabe’s interviews, I’ve been impressed with his performances. He comes off as credible and serious. He’s a better messenger than Comey, in many ways. But just because he’s saying things some people want to hear doesn’t mean he’s helping the cause. Catharsis isn’t necessarily strategic.

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Trump has now tweeted about McCabe nine times in the past six days, and on Wednesday afternoon, he compared him to a “poor man’s J. Edgar Hoover.” It’s possible Trump’s just consuming McCabe’s appearances one by one and reacting. It’s also possible he likes all of this because the same message helping McCabe sell books could help Trump solidify his base against the supposedly nefarious establishment efforts to take him down.